“A witch!” he wailed, falling to his knees. “A witch has killed our dear Brother Virgilius and Vitalis. Lord in heaven, help us!”
“Uh, that’s not exactly what happened,” Simon replied hesitantly from out of the darkness, which made both monks scream in terror.
“A witch, the Grim Reaper, and the stench of sulfur,” the older one cried out. “It’s the end of the world!”
Wailing and screaming, they ran up the mountain to the monastery, where the bells had just started to ring. Simon nervously turned the destroyed eyepiece in his hand. It appeared he would have to rewrite his report.
Far below in his hideout, the man read the news his assistant had just brought him. A faint smile passed over his face. They’d found the dead assistant amid the chaos, and the watchmaker had disappeared. Now everything else would take its course.
The only thing troubling him was that sneaky bathhouse surgeon and his damned woman. Why did they have to poke their noses into everything? Had she noticed anything in the tower? And why had her husband gone to the pond yesterday to nose around? Those two were like boils that itched and ached-not really dangerous but a distraction nevertheless. The man decided he’d have to keep a better eye on them, and he knew from experience what to do with painful boils.
You cut them out.
Full of a newly regained composure, he rose and crossed to a heavy oaken table covered with books and parchments. Some of these that were from distant lands would have been unfamiliar to most people; some were written with flourishes and in runes; one even in blood. All sought answers to a secret so ancient that it went back to the very beginnings of human life and human faith-when a first fur-clothed cave dweller held in his hands a shiny stone, a little bone, or a skull and kneeled down to kiss it.
It was faith alone that breathed life into that dead thing.
The man hunched over the books, closed his eyes, and ran his fingers over the lines written in blood. The solution was hidden somewhere in these books. And he suspected even more blood would flow before it was found.
An hour later, Simon stood in front of the monastery council in what they called the Prince’s Quarters on the third floor. Abbot Maurus Rambeck sat at the head of a long table, and to his right sat his deputy, the Prior Brother Jeremias, as well as the cellarer, the novitiate master, and the cantor, who was responsible for the care of the library, among other things. They all stared at Simon with dark and reproachful looks that conveyed their certainty he had something to do with the horrible murder.
Simon swallowed hard. For a moment he thought he could already feel the fire at his feet as he was being burned at the stake. At this moment he envied Magdalena, who, as a woman, was not allowed in the monastery wing. The monks had arrested her and taken her to an adjacent building, pending the outcome of his interrogation. Simon himself had had only a few minutes to speak privately with the abbot before the other members of the council appeared.
“Dear Brothers in Christ,” the abbot began with a trembling voice. Simon noticed that Brother Maurus, in contrast to the last visit, now appeared extremely anxious, even confused. Nervously he passed his tongue over his bulging lips. “I’ve called you together here because a murder has been committed in our ranks, one so horrible and mysterious that it’s difficult for me to find the right words…”
“The devil,” interrupted the cellarer, a fat monk whose tonsure was encircled by only a few thin hairs he’d artfully combed back over his bald head. “The devil came to fetch this effeminate Vitalis, along with his master, the warlock Virgilius. I’ve warned him many times to stop his accursed experiments, and now he’s fallen into Satan’s hands.”
“Brother Eckhart, I forbid you from talking that way about our fellow Brother,” the abbot shouted at him. “Brother Virgilius has disappeared, and that’s all we know. The blood in his shop leads us to believe there has been an accident. My God, perhaps he is just as dead as Vitalis…” Maurus Rambeck stopped and pressed his lips together, visibly moved.
“We must expect the worst, Maurus,” murmured the cantor and librarian sitting at the far end of the table. His hair was snow-white, and deep folds in his face made him look like a withered plum cake. “The destruction suggests a deadly battle took place. But why?” Distrustfully he looked at the medicus.
“I think it’s time for the bathhouse surgeon to tell us what he saw,” said the scrawny prior whose hooked nose and piercing eyes reminded Simon of an eagle.
An eagle just before it plunges downward toward a terrified little mouse in the wheat field, thought Simon. I’m lucky this Jeremias is only the abbot’s deputy.
“Who can tell us that this man from Schongau doesn’t have anything to do with it?” the prior continued. “After all, Brother Martin and Brother Jakobus came upon him and that woman at the scene. And other monks have disclosed to me that the bathhouse surgeon went to visit Virgilius-and Brother Johannes-yesterday,” he added ominously.
Now all five monks eyed Simon suspiciously. Their gazes seemed to pass right through him. Once more the medicus felt as if his feet were being held to the fire.
“Allow me please to explain what happened,” he began hesitantly. “I… can explain everything.”
The abbot nodded sympathetically, and Simon began his report, starting with his visit the previous day with Brother Johannes. He mentioned the latter’s argument with Virgilius, and finally pulled out the blood-encrusted eyepiece he’d found on the floor in the watchmaker’s workshop, which Abbot Rambeck reached for and showed to the other monks.
“This clearly belongs to Brother Johannes,” he said pensively. “The Schongau bathhouse surgeon told me before our meeting about his suspicion, and I then summoned Johannes.”
“And?” the old librarian asked.
Rambeck sighed. “He disappeared.”
“Is it possible he’s just in the forest collecting herbs?” the novitiate master interjected. He was a younger man with pleasant features and alert eyes, which were slightly red now. Simon wondered whether he’d been crying.
“Collecting herbs this early in the morning? Brother Johannes?” The cellarer Eckhart laughed derisively. “That would be the first time our dear Brother had been up that early. He usually prefers to go out in the light of the full moon and, after that, down a few pitchers of beer.”
“In any case, I’ve sent a few men out from the village to search for him and bring him back,” said Rambeck. “I’m reluctant to disturb the judge with the case until I’ve spoken with him. You know what that would mean.”
The monks nodded silently, and Simon, too, could imagine the consequences of a visit by the local judge. A few years ago, the elector’s deputy had appeared in Schongau at a witch trial, along with a large retinue and noisy soldiers. The city was still paying the bill for that months later.
“What we have here is a murder, Maurus,” the prior scolded, shaking his head. “Probably even a double murder, if we can’t find Virgilius.” He shrugged, and Simon thought he saw quiet satisfaction in his eyes. “I’m afraid we can’t avoid calling the district judge from Weilheim.”
The medicus took a step forward and cleared his throat. “Excuse me, but perhaps Brother Johannes is even responsible for three deaths.”
The prior frowned. “What do you mean?”
Hesitantly, Simon removed his report from his pocket and presented it to the council. He briefly explained his suspicions concerning the death of the novitiate Coelestin.
For a while, no one said a word.
Finally, the abbot spoke, his face now ashen. “Do you mean that Brother Johannes may have first killed his assistant Coelestin, then Vitalis, and possibly Virgilius as well? But… why?”
“We know that all too well,” Brother Eckhart snapped. His bald head turned red, and little veins stood out. “Haven’t the two always carried out sacrilegious experiments? Johannes and Virgilius? Didn’t we just two weeks ago forbid Brother Johannes from studying things that only God should be concerned with? And yet he persisted.” He stood up from his chair, panting heavily, and pounded the table so hard with his fist that the monks stared back at him in shock. “I’ll tell you what happened: the good novitiate Coelestin wanted to prevent his master from experimenting any further with this devil’s work. So Johannes simply killed him. Finally there was an argument between the two sorcerers Johannes and Virgilius; they fought with balls of fire and sulfur, until Virgilius went up in smoke at the end and went to hell, and his assistant was struck down by his enemy’s magic spells.”